at his inn, and found him in the parlour alone. He expressed great grief at the arrest of Mitchell, and after deploring for some time the loss the cause would sustain through it, he looked at his watch, and observed that it was time to attend the meeting. As they were walking towards the place appointed, Oliver said it was his firm conviction that their new plan of petitioning would have no effect on their oppressors, and that nothing short of physical force would do any good." The person to whom he said this, observed, "I come here for no such purpose." Oliver afterwards asked this person, "should there be any necessity, do you think all who at tended a meeting at Birmingham would be ready to fight for their liberties?" The Birmingham delegate was astonished at the question, and observed, it was a subject on which he had never entertained a thought, nor did he know of any person in Birmingham who had any such ideas. Oliver then used every means to inflame the minds of the persons present, and to urge them to insurrection. At Derby, he pursued the same system at a meeting. After some observations on Sir Francis Burdett's motion for reform, he said, that it was evident that petitioning parliament was of no use. He was then asked, if he considered reform to be altogether impracticable. To this Oliver said, "No, not in London, as there were other means to be tried; and that in London they were more active than ever to obtain their rights." Oliver was then asked, what way they meant to proceed, and he said, "they meant to try those means they had left, which was physical force; and that they were only waiting the determination of their friends in the country." He was told that the country would not do any thing. "In that," said Oliver, "you are mistaken; half the country is in an orga

VOL. XI. PART. II.

nized state, particularly Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, and most of the ma nufacturing districts."

The Solicitor-General and Mr Bathurst observed, that the report of the committee did not affix guilt to the persons alluded to, but merely apprehended the effect which might have been necessarily produced by their feigned concurrence with the designs of the disaffected. All that the report brought home to Oliver was an unintentional effect, not a deliberate and criminal design. The facts stated by Mr Bennet stood almost entirely on the authority of Mitchell, a person who had been arrested on suspicion of high treason, and who, by his own statement, had gone down with Oliver, with the design of agitating the country. Many of these statements were certainly erroneous.

Mr Bathurst declared that no one had been arrested upon Oliver's information, which was only used as a clue to more correct intelligence. Oliver had never given any information against Brandreth, for this good reason, that he had no connexion with, nor ever even saw him. Brandreth's dying declaration on this subject was utterly unfounded, and had been put into his mouth by some designing individual.

Mr Wilberforce decidedly condemned the employment of spies. Certainly the employment of such engines was not allowable in a religious view. The God or truth abhorred falsehood, and all the ways of deceit. It wasequally repugnant to any notions of honour or morality, or to the feelings of a gentleman; and on the mere ground of political expediency, the objections to it were almost as strong. Though the employment of spies might, in some particular instances, be attended with short and temporary advantages, and government might be able to detect some treasons which would otherwise escape punishment, yet he thought those ad

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vantages were much more than counterbalanced by the inconveniences that ensued. When he considered all the mistrust that such a system must occasion, even to the disturbance of domestic peace and confidence; when he considered the temptations to false information of every description; the misconstructions that might be put on the most innocent actions; and the suspicions and disaffection that must be excited against the government itself, he thought the general confusion that such a system would excite, must, in the long run, impede much more than further the cause of good order. He was against the motion, because it involved an inquiry that could not well be carried on in the committee, and for which the committee was not the proper place; and he must say, that he, for one, would not take a seat in the committee to which such an inquiry should be referred. The vote being put, the motion was negatived by 111 to 52.

The other motion was founded upon a petition from Manchester, presented by Mr Philips, on the 9th of July. It stated, that the allegations against this city of treasonable designs and proceedings, was altogether unfounded and calumnious; that the meetings, particularly that of the blanketeers, was held with the most loyal and peaceable intentions, when they were violently broke in upon by the soldiery, and numbers carried into crowded prisons, whence, however, they were dismissed, without any thing being proved against them. All the symptoms and appearances of disorder were stated to have proceeded entirely from spies and emissaries in the pay of government. Mr Philips, who presented the petition, followed it up with the following statements respecting the proceedings of spies at and around Manchester. The first person whose proceedings he would state to

the House, was Lomax. A person of the name of Acres, and his brotherin-law, on their return from Stockport, where they had gone to see some of the blanketeers on their road, went into a public-house (the Ark), and there found this man, Lomax, haranguing some people in a very violent manner, and proposing to send delegates to different towns in the neighbourhood, in order to call secret meetings. Acres repeatedly checked his violence. On going away with his brother, Lomax proposed to accompany them, and on arriving near his own house, he invited them in, saying he wished to have some conversation with them. After talking with them for a few minutes, he took a pen, and wrote these words, to which the honourable member wished to call the attention of the House, as they might probably be found in one of the green bags. England expects every man to do his duty. Arise, Britons, and free your brethren from prison. God save the King." Upon shewing what he had written to Acres, he recom mended him to throw it into the fire. This he refused, and said he would take it to Ogden to print. He went with it to Ogden's house, and desired his son (Ogden himself having been sent to prison) to print it, but he refused to have any thing to do with it. This wretch (Lomax) requested Irwin and George Barton (Acres' brothersin-law) to attend a meeting that night at eleven o'clock, which was to be held under the Aqueduct, to arrange a plan for setting the factories on fire. They expressed their horror of the scheme, and threatened to inform against him, if he ever mentioned such a thing again. Lomax replied, "We are sure to be taken up, I am at least, and we may as well have our revenge beforehand." The two Bartons mentioned this the same day to Acres, who was confirmed by it in his suspicion that Lomax

was a spy. At another time he said, "Manchester will soon be set on fire, and the factories will blaze within two hours as a signal." The people supposed that he was mad. This wretch was not contented with attempting himself to lead people into the commission of crimes, but he sent emissaries round the country to do the same thing. Though rejected wherever he went, he still persisted in his proposals of mischief. The honourable member remarked, that it seemed to be the plan of these spies to reconcile people's minds to mischief by repeating the proposal of it. One object they did accomplish, namely, that of making some people believe that there was a scheme in agitation to burn Manchester, because so many persons had heard of it. This circumstance had been stated to the honourable member himself, as a proof of the existence of the reported conspiracy. The honourable member, after dismissing Lomax, stated, that another of the spies, who called himself Dewhurst, having been seen in Sir John Byng's gig, was challenged with the fact, which he admitted, stating, that he had come with Sir John Byng as his servant, from London, where he had been desired by the reformers to act as their delegate. This man took every opportunity of becoming acquainted with those whom he heard were advocates for Parliamentary reform. Robert Waddington, an associate of Dewhurst, proceeded in the same manner. At a meeting where one Redeings was present, he urged the plan of burning factories, of which Redeings expressed a just abhorrence. Waddington then said, "It is now time I should tell you my information. I have a letter from London this morning, and all the people in that neighbourhood are up. There are 80,000 at Chalk-farm, 100,000 at another place which he mentioned, and 60,000

or 70,000 at a third." Redeings said, he did not believe a word of it; on which Waddington declared, "there were many letters in town to the same effect." The honourable member concluded by moving, that the petition should be brought up; and announced his intention, on some early day, of moving that it be referred to a committee.

On the 5th March Mr Philips brought forward his motion, which, however, assumed a more vague and general character. Referring merely to the reports of the committees of secrecy, and to the petitions in general, he proposed an inquiry into the allegations therein contained, respecting the conduct of spies and inform ers. He acknowledged, indeed, the information received from Sir John Byng, that no spy or informer had ever been in any carriage of his in Lancashire, that he had never had any such character in his service or employ, nor ever had any communication, either directly or indirectly, with per sons of that description, up to the 28th of March, the day on which the individuals in Manchester, accused of traitorous designs, were arrested. He paid the most ample tribute to the honour, as well as moderation and humanity, of Sir John Byng. At the same time, he conceived the facts generally known, and the belief entertained by the public, to be sufficient to authorize the inquiry now proposed.

Mr Robinson animadverted on the proceedings of the honourable mover, as one of the most extraordinary he had ever witnessed. The petition from Manchester had been brought forward with the greatest parade, and accompanied with a number of minute statements, of which he declared himself ready to produce incontrovertible proof. He had now come forward with a motion entirely different from

that which he had announced, and by which, indeed, he completely abandoned the ground he had taken. There was indeed a good reason for this, in the total want of all means of proving his former assertions. Only let the House recollect the elaborate speech of the honourable gentleman when he presented the petition, and his long story about a man of the name of Dewhurst, who had been carried to General Byng in that officer's gig; and about another man of the name of Lomax, who, he said, was a hired spy. What had the honourable gentleman now to say to these stories? So far as General Byng was concerned, he had now told the truth; all the rest was a fabrication. The whole of that story was false. Nay, more, no man of the name of Dewhurst was known to General Byng, or to government; as to Lomax, the honourable gentleman knew from General Byng, that that man was no spy; or if the honourable gentleman did not know it before, he knew it now. [Hear, hear! from the Opposition.] Whatever schemes Lomax was concerned in-whatever atrocities he contemplated-he did all as a

conspirator, and not a spy. It was true, that on the 17th of March this man wrote a letter to Lord Sidmouth, offering to communicate information. This letter was not answered. On the 28th of March, Lomax was arrested with several others, and, after being examined, was released; and there ended the whole communication between Lomax and the magistrates, or the government. Others of the petitions had been proved to contain the grossest falsehoods, and to come from men convicted of perjury. As these petitions were to be the groundwork of the proposed proceeding, he conceived the House could have no hesitation in rejecting the motion. A warm debate, however, was maintained by Mr Douglas, Lord Milton, and Mr Bennet, on one side, and by Mr Courtenay, Lord Lascelles, and Mr Bathurst, on the other. Mr Wilberforce said, that although he condemned as much as ever the employment of spies, the present motion was so vague and indefinite, that he could not give it his support. The House divided, when the motion was negatived by 162 to 69.

THOSE immense financial concerns in which Britain is involved,-the amount, unparalleled in any other age or country, of her revenue and expenditure, and the heavy burdens with which she is pressed, must always form a prominent subject of consideration to the British Parliament. Even in the most eventful periods, finance usually occupies at least the second place among the objects of its attention. It pressed at present as a heavy and difficult task upon those who held the reins of administration. The war, indeed, with its enormous expenditure, and annual accumulation of debt, was happily over; had it continued, the invention of no minister could have devised many new channels by which money could be wrung from the exhausted country. Matters, however, had already come to such a crisis, as to make it extremely difficult to place the finances on the footing on which they ought to be during a period of

peace. Two objects were then to be fulfilled.-First, the income and expenditure must be placed on a level; for to continue contracting debt now would be ruining ourselves without hope. But this is not enough: the immense debt already contracted, must be placed in some train of liquidation. These two objects were to be effected in the face of the public, which called aloud for some remission of the taxes under which they had groaned. They had already wrested from ministers the whole of the income-tax; and fresh motions to a similar effect were made every session, in which ministers were always on the brink of being outvoted, and which, if lost, were lost by smaller majorities than any other questions.

The present aspect of financial affairs appeared at first view not a little portentous and alarming. When it is stated, that, on a comparison of income and expenditure, there appeared a deficiency of fourteen millions, to